{"id":8088,"date":"2011-11-20T10:10:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-20T15:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveaction.org\/blog\/?p=8088"},"modified":"2013-04-02T06:33:36","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T10:33:36","slug":"a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;A world without people with down syndrome.&#8221; At what cost?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/liveaction.org\/blog\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/down-syndrome-child-1\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8090\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8090 aligncenter\" title=\"Down-Syndrome-Child-1\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/liveaction.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Down-Syndrome-Child-1-300x183.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"183\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">One of the great philosophical divisions of our time is between those who believe progress is steadily making mankind happier, healthier, and all-around better; and those who believe human nature is basically constant, with new developments just as capable of yielding evil as they are good. Both worldviews collide in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nypost.com\/p\/news\/opinion\/opedcolumnists\/the_end_of_down_syndrome_yetA47ZB9s5Rzg0Fjbb5QM?utm_campaign=OutbrainA&amp;utm_source=OutbrainArticlepages&amp;obref=obinsite\">recent <em>New York Post<\/em> story<\/a> on a new method of testing for Down Syndrome:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Last month, San Diego-based Sequenom released a test that allows doctors to screen for the most prevalent type of Down syndrome with only a blood test from the mother. The screening is available in 20 cities and is expected to hit New York soon. Two other companies have plans to release similar tests next year [\u2026]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Because the current methods of screening for Down syndrome, amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling, carry a risk of inducing miscarriage, only about 2% of pregnant women in the nation undergo the screening, says Dr. Brian Skotko, of the Down syndrome program at Children\u2019s Hospital Boston.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sounds great\u2026except for what expecting mothers might do with the information:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWhat you end up having is a world without people with Down syndrome,\u201d says Paul Root Wolpe, director of the center for ethics at Emory University. \u201cAnd the question becomes is that a good thing or bad thing?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>[\u2026] <\/em><em>The safer prenatal screenings will likely mean more women will be tested, and the number of women carrying babies with Down syndrome who terminate their pregnancies could increase, if not skyrocket. Today, 92% of mothers who get a definitive diagnosis of Down choose to abort, surveys show.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It\u2019s understandable that many mothers would be tempted by the opportunity to avoid bringing a child with serious medical issues into the world, motivated both by pity for the child\u2019s quality of life and by the challenges of raising a special-needs child. It\u2019s also predictable that many people would be excited by the prospect of wiping an entire disease from the face of the earth.<em><\/em><\/p>\n<p>But the dream of a world without Down Syndrome masks an ugly reality. As difficult as the condition\u2019s effects can make life, they <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmedhealth\/PMH0001992\/\">hardly guarantee<\/a> a life of misery and emptiness. Down patients are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.down-syndrome.org\/information\/development\/overview\/?page=2\">still capable<\/a> of leading happy, rewarding lives\u2014that is, if they\u2019re not snuffed out in the womb first. Nobody can fully know the fruits or fulfillment of another\u2019s life, especially one that\u2019s barely even begun. However empathetic the intent may be, killing someone to spare him or her an uncertain future is as shortsighted as it is arrogant.<\/p>\n<p>Nor would a world without Down be the result. Even if we assume a 100% abortion rate of Down babies, preventing them from passing the disease on to future generations, Down has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ndss.org\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=60&amp;Itemid=77\">non-hereditary factors<\/a> which ensure that the disease itself would survive, leaving the wholesale aborting to be repeated in every generation in the name of eradicating Down Syndrome. In the end, we wouldn&#8217;t be wiping out the disease, just killing the patients early enough that we can fool ourselves into believing they were never here.<\/p>\n<p>There is, however, one encouraging nugget in the <em>Post<\/em> story. Shocking though it may be that \u201c92% of mothers who get a definitive diagnosis\u201d abort, keep in mind that 98% of mothers don\u2019t even seek a diagnosis, to avoid even the possibility of hurting their baby by current detection methods. So we can expect the number of Down abortions to rise, but not necessarily skyrocket. Many mothers will continue to choose life under challenging circumstances, demonstrating to all that the best elements of human nature sometimes shine in spite of the &#8220;easy outs&#8221; scientific progress can sometimes provide to our natural temptations.<em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the great philosophical divisions of our time is between those who believe progress is steadily making mankind happier, healthier, and all-around better; and those who believe human nature is basically constant, with new developments just as capable of yielding evil as they are good. Both worldviews collide in a recent New York Post [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[19,429,1174,1175,1176,1177,34,1178,1179,337,1180],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;A world without people with down syndrome.&quot; At what cost? - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;A world without people with down syndrome.&quot; At what cost? - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the great philosophical divisions of our time is between those who believe progress is steadily making mankind happier, healthier, and all-around better; and those who believe human nature is basically constant, with new developments just as capable of yielding evil as they are good. Both worldviews collide in a recent New York Post [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-20T15:10:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-04-02T10:33:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/liveaction.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Down-Syndrome-Child-1-300x183.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Calvin Freiburger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Calvin Freiburger\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/6eb2bf94c8064b71953ba137bf413c4d\"},\"headline\":\"&#8220;A world without people with down syndrome.&#8221; At what cost?\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-11-20T15:10:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-02T10:33:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/\"},\"wordCount\":620,\"commentCount\":20,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"abortion\",\"Down syndrome\",\"historical relativism\",\"human nature\",\"Medicine\",\"New York Post\",\"Pro-Life\",\"progress\",\"Progressivism\",\"science\",\"technology\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Opinion\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/a-world-without-people-with-down-syndrome-at-what-cost\/\",\"name\":\"\\\"A world without people with down syndrome.\\\" At what cost? 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Calvin is an editor and administrator for TheFederalistPapers.org, and his work has appeared on NewsRealBlog.com, PatriotUpdate.com, LifeNews.com, LifeSiteNews.com, RightWisconsin.com, AmericanThinker.com, Stream.org, AmericanClarion.org, and more. Please check out his official website, ConservativeStandards.com. 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